“Just a few more yards to go, gentlemen,” Josie called from the ledge of the rocky cleeve, “and our tour will be finished—” As would be the two hopelessly out-of-shape inspectors from the bloody Timber Supply Department, once they finally made it to the top of the trail where she was waiting in the cool, dappled shadows beneath the canopy of alder.

She’d purposely tramped the blighters through the roughest territory possible. Around the muckiest part of the lake, up the north side of Windmill Hill into the thick understory of brambles and blackthorn, across the wide hilltop of beech, then down the eastern slope of broadleafs, across muddy streams, uphill and downhill again, through a gauntlet of face-slapping branches. Exactly what they both deserved-exhaustion and a head full of confusion.

“Nearly—” the older Mr. Rufus dropped to his knees at the top of the trail, braced his hands against the rocky ground, his wool trousers bristling with weeds and thistledown, his rucksack sagging off his shoulder “–there.”

“Thir-sty,” the younger Darby said in a croak as he stepped over Rufus, dropped his satchel and himself onto the ground beside a thicket of brambles and berries. He swabbed the sweat from his eyes with his sleeve, blinking blindly out over the countryside that overlooked the lake, the paddocks and the Hall in the far distance.

The dearest view in all the world.

“Well, gentlemen, now that you’ve seen the extent of Balesboro Wood, have you any more questions regarding Nimway’s timber yields and harvest schedules?”

The men remained unmoving, silent but for their panting, the guide maps she’d provided for the tour folded away and hopefully forgotten. She waited for one of the men to respond, content for the moment to be wreathed in the downy soft hum of bees among the honeysuckle overgrowing a nearby hazel.

Still they didn’t speak; she hadn’t allowed them enough time between dashing sprints to catch their breath.

“I hope I’ve shown Balesboro Wood in the best possible light. That it thrives because we’ve always taken care to know every tree and sapling, every frog and bower, every patch of monkshood and bluebell. For untold generations, we harvest the single oak in its time, and let the stand mature.”

“Never seen the like, Miss Stirling,” Darby said, finally sitting upright, pulling a damp and grimy kerchief from his trouser pocket. “Thorough as a dose of salts. You’ve a dab hand at forestry—for a woman.”

And you’re a chuckle-headed arsehole, Josie yearned to say. “Balesboro Wood is in my blood, Mr. Darby, as sure as its timber is woven into the fabric of Somerset, its barns and houses, churches, village halls, Wells Cathedral and Nimway Hall itself.”

Rufus wobbled to his knees, joining Darby in his unfocused gazing. “You’ve given us much to report—” he drew in a deep breath “—to our superiors, Miss Stirling.”

“Per the Timber Supply Department’s request, Mr. Rufus, I’ve compiled a full accounting of every tract and stand. There’s a copy waiting for you in my office.”

“We are impressed, as I said. However—”

However, nothing! “Assure your department, Mr. Darby, that should they require telegraph poles or pit props for coal mines, or wooden fairings for Spitfire wings, Nimway Hall will fell and deliver our timber goods, per their exact specifications, on schedule and under-cost.”

“We do understand your concern, Miss Stirling–” Rufus was finally on his feet, had mostly recovered his breath and was pulling his note pad and pencil from the breast pocket of his jacket. “But as a farmer, you must realize that an acre of grazing land for cattle and sheep feeds only 1.2 people. That same acre planted in wheat will feed twenty.”

“Yes, and it will feed forty if planted in potatoes. But you can’t plant potatoes on land as steep as Balesboro Wood. Or beets or barley! The very idea is not only absurd, but—”

“My dear Miss Stirling, for the duration of the war—” Rufus brushed at the air about his ears, “—these decisions are not yours...to make.” Another swipe at the air with his right hand, then the left. He spun and fluttered his arms over his head.

“What Rufus means, Miss Stirling, is that—” Darby stood up and flicked his kerchief into the leafy thicket, looked down and stomped his foot “—the Timber Supply Department receives its orders from the War Office, and we—”

“Ouch! Damn! The wicked little bugger bit me—” Rufus began dancing around, swatting at his arm “–right through my jacket.”

“Ow, my ear!” Darby slapped at his head, his trouser legs then his torso. “Careful, Rufus, there’s one on your neck!”

Slap! “Owwww!” Rufus swatted his neck twice more and started digging into his collar. “Get off!”

It was that time of year, when the bees and wasps were easily riled as the summer’s plenty began to disappear. “If you’ll just stand still, gentlemen and the bees should—”

“The hell I will!” Darby took off down the slope toward the lake below, with Rufus on his heels, both men bellowing at the top of their lungs as they wheeled and wobbled down the rocky path.

“Ask Mrs. Lamb for a poultice!” Josie shouted after the fleeing inspectors, trying not to laugh out loud—not at their pain, but at her momentary reprieve. “I’ll bring your satchels!”

Josie stood for a long moment, watching, chiding herself for not feeling bad for the pair.

“You’re a heartless woman, Josie Stirling.”

Josie whirled at the voice, knowing it was Fletcher before she found him standing at the edge of the dark woods. He was smiling like a cat who’d been spying on his dinner, just about to pounce.

“How long have you been watching, Colonel?” And why hadn’t she heard him approach? She usually heard everything that went on in the woods within a hundred feet around her, could sort the rilling of a stream from the rustle of a vole through leafy clutter.

“Long enough to feel sorry for those two.” He stepped out into a patch of sunlight. Standing there in the full glare of the sun, the man looked every inch the well-trained soldier. His shoulders broader than she remembered from the shadows of the night before, his muscles sharply defined beneath the lighter weight of his khaki cotton shirt, his forearms thickly corded where he had rolled up the sleeves. “Seems Mrs. Lamb was right to worry about those two.”

“Mrs. Lamb exaggerates. About everything.” Was forever trying to fix her up with a husband. “What did she say about the inspectors?”

“The ‘wicked timber people’? Quite a bit, actually, mostly nonsense about Balesboro Wood. And that I shouldn’t worry, because you wouldn’t let anything happen to them.”

“She doesn’t like the woods, believes the local legends.”

“So I gathered. I gave her a lift from the village. Couldn’t let her wheel that barrow of food up to the Hall while I drove past in the Austin.”

“Mrs. Lamb knows that she’s perfectly welcome to drive Bess into the village on market day to pick up the week’s groceries. But thank you, Colonel. She’s not as spry as she was when she first came on as a kitchen maid forty years ago. And how did you fare in Balesboro Wood?” He looked none the worse for wear; it must approve of the man. “Did you find a suitable site for your survey?”

“Site?” He frowned sharply as though he’d forgotten last night’s conversation, then nodded and scrubbed his fingers through his dark hair. “Ah, yes—I did. A perfect location, can see all the way across the Levels to the Bristol Channel.”

“Care to show me, Colonel?” There were only a few places that offered such a sweeping view. Best to know which and where so she could keep track of him. “Or is it an official secret?”

“What about your inspectors? Shouldn’t you at least check on them? They can’t be happy with their treatment in your woods.”

“Mrs. Lamb will dose them with feverfew, poultice their wounds and fill them up with one of her farmhouse lunches; they’ll sleep for two hours and awaken without a welt. At which point, I’ll return their satchels, hand them a copy of my harvest records, load them into their car and send them happily on their way.”

He raised a skeptical brow, as though she were spinning a tale just for him. “You’re serious?”

“It’s the way we take care of people who get in our way here at Nimway Hall.”

“Should I consider that a threat?”

“A simple fact, Colonel. Do with it what you will.”

Fletcher opened his mouth as though to speak, paused to shrug before he spoke. “All right then, Miss Stirling, I’ll show you the siting location and you can tell me if you know of a better place.”

“Anything to aid in the war effort.” She picked up the rucksack and satchel, slung them over one shoulder and started toward the woods.

But she’d misjudged the weight of the rucksack and it swung her off balance, knocking into the back of her knees. She would have fallen like a sack of turnips if Fletcher hadn’t caught her on the way down, countered all that momentum and pulled her against the hard length of him. His arms, his chest, his hips, his—

“Colonel!” His mouth was inches from hers, alive with that enigmatic humor of his.

“Perhaps these woods are magical, Miss Stirling.” His eyes were dancing as he held her, bright and blue as the sky.

The woods and the orb and this very intrusive man! Magical nonsense!

“I’ll thank you to restore me to my feet, Colonel.”

“If you think you can walk on your own without crashing to the ground?” He straightened with her, held out the rucksack.

“I’ll do my best.” Her cheeks ablaze with embarrassment and her pulse drumming against her ears, Josie retrieved the rucksack and ducked into the cool shadows of the understory. A dozen steps further she heard the nicker of a horse, saw familiar movement in a stand of trees. “You rode Cassie up here?”

“Isaac assured me that you wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all.” She truly didn’t. She smoothed her hands along Cassie’s cool neck, let the mare’s warm tongue lave the palm of her hand for its salt. “In fact, I appreciate you giving her an airing. I’ve been too busy since the war began for pleasure riding and my girl does love these woods.”

“She did seem to know her way around the trails and tracks.”

“We often log up here with our Shire horses.” She looped the straps of the rucksack and the satchel over the pommel. “Cassie tags along, doesn’t like to be left behind any more than Winnie does. Or me.”

“Where is Winnie today?”

“With the children. Their last day of freedom before school starts tomorrow.”

“Then come see the survey site if you insist, Miss Stirling,” he said, gathering Cassie’s reins beneath her bit. “I could use your opinion.”

“I’ve plenty of those, Colonel, on a variety of subjects. Lead on.”

* * *

While Gideon was still thrumming with the scent of her, the lady of Nimway Hall seemed to have quickly forgotten their brief encounter as she led him along the ridge of trees.

“I thought this might be where you meant, Colonel.” She cast her smile back at him then stepped lightly through a patch of brambles and ivy in her wellies. “We cleared this place for a skid two years ago, last time we thinned the Overlook. You can still see along here where we staged the logs after felling—” she stepped toward the drop-off and peered over the edge. “The gouges in the stone from the skid track are still there where we lowered the logs down the slope to the road level.”

Pleased that he’d scouted a suitable survey site for his cover story, Gideon looped Cassie’s reins over a branch and followed the woman, realizing that for all his hiking about for the past two hours, the expected ache in his knee hadn’t materialized. In its place was a persistent curiosity about the intriguing Josie Stirling.

He’d caught sight of her a half-hour ago, marching the hapless inspectors through the understory as though they had been enchanted by a sorceress, the Pied Piper leading the innocents into the mountain where they’d likely never have been seen again if the woman had had her wishes. He’d remained silent in his cover on the trail above, amused by her determination to save her woods from the ministerial marauders, grateful that Cassie hadn’t given them away.

Dressed in dungarees, a white cotton thermal top, a blue and green plaid shirt over that, a wide-brimmed hat topping her golden hair, and a pair of aviator sunglasses perched on her perfectly shaped nose, Josie Stirling was every inch the formidable castellan of Nimway Hall. The inspectors ought to have been forewarned, as he had been.

“We’re less than two-hundred feet in elevation here, Colonel, but you’ve chosen the perfect view across the Levels for your survey site.” She slid her glasses into the pocket of her dungarees and waited for him to work his way through the brambles, then pointed to the north with the efficiency of a Prussian tour guide. “That odd-shaped hill is Glastonbury Tor, Ynys yr Afalon in Old English—” the words rolled off her tongue like a fairy language “—the Isle of Avalon. Very Arthurian.”

“The Tor, yes, I’ve marked it here on my map, though I didn’t know its name.” He unfolded the nearly featureless sheet from his pocket, oriented it toward the hill and filled in the name. “But what’s that structure on the top? Is it recent?”

“Thoroughly medieval. A solitary stone tower; all that remains of the monastery of St. Michael’s after the Dissolution. But the legends surrounding the Tor itself are older than time. Have you heard of the Red Dragon and the White doing battle beneath the Tor?”

She tipped the hat off her head, letting it hang at her back and turned the startling green of her gaze on him. Fringes of curling gold had escaped the bundled hair at her neck and now framed her face. While the soft spray of golden freckles across the bridge of her nose branded her as a farm girl, the fineness of her features spoke of an ancient, aristocratic lineage blended with the artful boldness of her father’s Stirling line.

“Red dragon,” Gideon heard himself say, wondering why those words, because he’d completely forgotten the subject they were discussing. “You said something about dragons?”

“Fanciful folklore of course, Colonel. But I’m afraid I know far too much about the mystical madness of all things Arthurian, especially when it comes to Glastonbury and Somerset. Even the name Nimway Hall has all to do with the legend of Nimue and Merlin.”

“King Arthur’s wizard? That Merlin?”

“The very same, the whole Matter of Britain affair. Nimue was the Lady of the Lake, ruler of Avalon, bestower of Excalibur upon Arthur after his battle sword broke, and, according to family gossips—Merlin’s lover.”

“His lover?”

“Apparently Merlin made Nimue so angry at some point in their relationship, she trapped him inside a tree. Or a stone, or a cave, depending on what you believe, or don’t. Nimway Hall itself is supposedly sitting atop the site of Nimue’s cave. Very mystical.”

Like everything about the woman. Last night’s incident with the oddly glowing orb popped into his thoughts, the iridescence of her face as she chased the object through the library. He brushed the memory aside and returned to his map.

“This long, low ridge below the Tor—”

“Wearyall Hill, location of the Holy Thorn where Joseph of Arimathea landed his boat and stuck his hawthorn staff into the ground, where from it grew a tree that blooms every Christmas.”

“Joseph of Arimathea. You mean the uncle of Jesus?” Gideon couldn’t help his chuckle. “He came to Glastonbury?”

“Founded the first monastery. And, according to Blake, might have brought the boy Jesus along with him.”

“‘And did those feet in ancient time / Walk upon England’s mountains green–‘ Blake was referring to Glastonbury?”

“Quite plainly, according to scholars and true believers.” She grinned as though teasing him, smoothed back her hair and replaced her hat. “But to continue your two-penny tour, Colonel, the Levels used to flood from here to the sea, before the monks of Glastonbury began channeling the water into the Brue.”

“A hell of an engineering project: excavating by hand, all the way to the sea.”

“But just imagine before that—the people of the Iron Age, standing on this same hill, on a moonless night, looking out as far as they could see onto a lake as still as glass, its black surface mirroring every star in the sky.”

The woman’s imagination was a palpable thing, filled his head with a glittering dark night and the sense that he and she had stood together here long ago, on this ancient hill, buffeted by the same breeze. “A carpet of constellations,” he said, surprising himself.

She swung her gaze around to him and smiled. “A lovely turn of phrase, Colonel.”

Gideon, he wanted to say, to invite her to use his given name so that she might allow him the same liberty in moments like these. But the wind had cooled and was buffeting him off balance. “Yes, well, you paint a vivid picture, Miss Stirling.”

“Josie. Please call me Josie, Colonel Fletcher. If we’re to work together.”

Bloody hell, does the woman read minds?

“And may I call you Gideon?”

Damnation! “Well, I—”

“I understand if you’d rather not, Colonel. But, for the sake of efficiency, in our private dealings, and as a gesture of good will between us, I thought—”

“Gideon.” Hell, yes. “Of course. We needn’t stand on formalities.” He felt caught out in his every thought about her. Exposed, when he’d rather have taken the upper hand in this relationship. He and she were not equals. Not in the eyes of the War Office. And not by his lights. She was a woman. A farmer. Her grasp of the complexity of war was limited to what she could see from atop the hilltop she loved so fiercely. She might be a crack forester and run her estate like a field marshal, but when it came to her ‘war effort’, as she so proudly referred to her activities, she was a civilian and would only get in his way if he allowed her to distract him from his orders.

He cleared his throat, hoping to clear his mind. “Yes, well, Josie, if you will be so kind as to confirm the name of this town—” he tapped the map which he’d been issued as a completely, utterly frustrating blank outline of Somerset county “–here, to the west of Wearyall Hill–“

”That would be Glastonbury, with the ruins of the Abbey, quite marvelous also quite mystical.“

He made a crosshatch to indicate the location of the town, then ran his finger along his own penciled-in squiggle. “This range of hills to the south–are they the Poldens?”

“Yes, and behind them farther west is the town of Taunton, which I suppose you already know.”

He made another cross-hatching for Taunton. “Not well enough.”

“Closer in to us, along that avenue of trees, is our village of Balesborough. That’s the roof of the council offices, the village hall and the church tower of St. Æthelgar in the nearer distance.”

The site of the dead drop. He wouldn’t chance a look today, in broad daylight; the cover of darkness would have to suffice.

“We’re very proud of Æthelgar’s baptismal font; it dates from Saxon times. If you should find yourself nearby, take a look inside the sanctuary, if you’ve an interest in ecclesiastical architecture.”

Hard to best a direct invitation by the lady herself, as an excuse to be discovered wandering about the churchyard. “I might just do that.”

Her eyes brightened suddenly. “I hear a Spitfire.” She pointed directly at the glint of a low-flying airplane coming toward them across the Levels. “Looks to be heading out of Bristol.”

“You know your plane spotting,” he said, as the aircraft reduced its speed and slid past them just above eye level, through the airspace between them and the Poldens.

“Home Guard training.”

He laughed. Couldn’t help it. “You can’t be a member of the Home Guard. You’re a woman.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Most of the parish still belongs to my family, Colonel—I mean Gideon—” her eyes flashed again “—I can do most anything I want. Such as insisting that the Home Guard conduct monthly classes on a subject that everyone in the village can attend. Including school children, old men, those in reserved occupations, and, yes, women.”

“Instructions on what? Knitting?”

“The first was plane spotting, very popular. Then blackout hints. How to make a Molotov cocktail. Hand-to-hand combat using farm tools and kitchen implements.”

He wanted dearly to laugh at her bravado. “And people actually attend these classes? Men and women?”

“Standing room only. I suggest you mind your manners around the housewives of Balesborough, Gideon, and accept their invitation to the Spitfire Fund Fete, or you might find yourself with a flatiron-shaped dent in the back of your head.”

“Wielded by Mrs. Peak, I assume?” He could well imagine. “She told me all about the fete this morning. And that the lady of Nimway Hall would demand I attend, since the fete was her idea.”

“It was my idea, but I would never presume—”

“You bloody well would. You presume more than any woman in my experience.”

“Then you must be a man of very little experience with women.” Her eyes grew large; the innuendo obviously unintended. “By which I mean—”

“That the women in my life are suppressed by me? Persecuted? Tyrannized?”

“Why? Have you many women in your life?” Her cheeks pinkened, setting off her pale freckles.

“Plenty.”

“A wife?” More blushing, her eyebrows raised.

“A mother, three younger sisters, two sisters-in-law and a few nieces. And I can assure you that each of them would laugh at the idea. Would never allow me to suppress them or their opinions.”

“But you have most certainly tried.”

“What do you mean?”

“Would you ever dare try to suppress the opinions of your brothers?”

“My brothers are significantly older than I and—” theirs had been childhoods based on fierce and unrelenting competition fomented by their father.

“And, no, of course you’ve never questioned their opinions or their actions—they’re men and anything they do or say has value.”

“That’s not what I—”

“So, will you attend the fete? The entire parish of Balesborough will be there because the point of it all is not only to raise funds to buy a Spitfire, but also to raise our collective spirits, to give us all something to believe in. To rise up together and help save England in her hour of greatest need. Just like King Arthur promised to do.”

“That’s a tall order.”

“Just you watch and wait, Gideon. Once we’ve bought the Spitfire, we’re planning to start saving for a tank for our boys in the Western Desert Force.”

A tank. A ridiculous notion on its face. A dark disappointment when they failed. But a sharp lesson in the harsh realities of war: that battles were fought on the field, not in the village square. Certainly not by women. “I wish you well.”

She stared at him for a long, challenging moment then jammed her aviator glasses onto her nose. “I hear Winnie.” She stalked back through the patch of brambles. “This way, Gideon.”

“Where?” He hadn’t heard a thing except his pulse and the wind, and then a yelping bark that blew up from below.

“One last marvel. I want to show you Maximo—”

“Maximo?” A large rock?

“Our Pendunculate oak.” The woman plunged into the shadows, and, damn, if she and Winnie weren’t soon leading him and Cassie down the hill on a trail toward the abandoned ice house he’d settled on for the Auxiliary Unit’s Operational Base. He’d chosen the site because of it’s obscure location, hidden from prying eyes and curious lads on the southern most edge of the forest, just off the old logging track that ran along the base of the hill.

But she thumped along the wooded path in her determined stride, right over the earthen top of the abandoned ice house without a remark, crashing through the bracken and out into a clearing of golden meadow grass where she came to a stop at the margins. At its center stood an enormous common oak tree, with a broad and spreading canopy that surely measured a hundred feet across.

“I kept the inspectors far away from here.” She stood gazing up at the crown, fists balled against her hips. “I feared they’d find a reason to cut it down.”

“I understand the reason it’s called Maximo.” He followed with Cassie as she began walking toward the monumentally tall tree. The breeze came up, shaking the brightest colored leaves loose and fluttering them to the ground.

“Thirty-two feet at its girth, nearly hollow inside and thought to be more than a thousand years old. Winnie’s favorite place on a hot summer day—go girl!— and my favorite place to hide when I was a little girl.” The dog barked and bounded toward the oak, disappearing into a dark split in its thick trunk.

“Who were you hiding from?”

“My two cousins. Both boys. Tony, a year older and Frederick, two years. The closest I have to siblings. Balesboro Wood was our magical kingdom. I was the queen and they were my knights. Still are.”

“Where are your cousins now?”

Her eyes misted over. “Tony’s in the Royal Marines and Fred’s just entered the Naval College at Greenwich.”

“I can quite easily see you playing here. Plotting with, and against, your cousins.”

“I learned from the best.”

“Remind me not to cross you, Josie.”

“What do you mean?”

“If your mystical powers are as potent as your family legends claim, then I fear you might one day trap me inside a tree for the duration.”

“Just as Nimue did to Merlin?” Her smile grew devilish. “If you knew Balesboro Wood as I do, Gideon, you’d best heed your own warning!”

Not at all certain how to read the woman, he nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really ought to be getting back to the Hall. I have a busy afternoon and the inspectors will have calmed down by now and are tucking in to Mrs. Lamb’s delicious Eve’s pudding. With Nimway’s own Somerset apples topped with warm custard. Irresistible, my dear colonel.” She licked her fingertip as though it tasted of cream and cinnamon, then hoisted the rucksack and satchel off Cassie’s pommel. “I’ll leave you to finish your survey. By the way, if you get thirsty, the village is through that break in the stand of alders; I can recommend Nimway’s scrumpy at the Hungry Dragon. When you get to the churchyard wall keep to the right and you’ll find yourself back on the High Street. Safer than trying to find your way home the way we came.”

“Tonight, in the library?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” She challenged him with a provocative smile and a lift of her eyebrow, hitched the two bags over her shoulder— “Come, Winnie!” —then strode away through the tall golden grass until she and her black dog vanished into the shadows of the woods, leaving Gideon to stare after her, his pulse racing, his head tangled with her yarns.

Cassie nickered and nudged him in the middle of his back, as though urging him to follow her.

“Not a good idea, Cassie,” he said, wondering that his leg hadn’t given him a pinch of trouble since he’d arrived in the woods.

He easily swung up into Cassie’s saddle and rode back to the site of the abandoned ice house to more completely examine the site for its suitability. The three other possible locations had points against them.

Judging by the overgrown track, the ice house must have been abandoned nearly thirty years before. The entrance had once been a half-barrel shaped vestibule made of red brick, most of which had collapse backward against, what he could only assume as he reached through the curtain of trailing ivy and pulled a few bricks from the jumble, was a thick oak door. All to the good.

The blocked entrance would serve as perfect camouflage for the trapdoor entrance he hoped his sappers could dig through the limestone from the low wooded ledge a dozen feet above. He wasn’t sure what was on the other side of the blockage—a natural cave or a brick-lined room—but either case put the ice house at the top of his list of options for the Operational Base.

He took a dozen quick measurements, sketching out the site on a notepad, included the approaches and current placement of the surrounding trees and understory which would need to be protected from any disturbance made by the construction.

The sun was nearly setting when he finished and realized that the debriefing meeting wasn’t for another hour. He decided to chance being seen on his casual approach to the churchyard. After all, hadn’t the lady of Nimway Hall invited him to have a look?

Ten minutes later he had secured Cassie to a branch just inside the woods and was standing at the low stone wall, looking out at what seemed to be an ancient section of the churchyard. Tall stalks of nearly spent wildflowers waved between moss-covered tombstones that tipped every which way, some leaning against each other, some fallen, a few propped in a line against the wall itself. The gray stone of the old Norman belltower was barely visible through the weedy trees. Not a soul to be seen anywhere.

And there it was: the yew tree, a dozen yards further on, exactly as described in last night’s message, its trunk embedded in the dry stone wall itself, hundreds of cloth clooties hanging from its branches, waving in the breeze. He hoisted himself over the wall and made his way through waist-high weeds and canted stone grave markers.

The yew tree was much smaller than Maximo, but doubtless much, much older, older than the church itself. Its heartwood was long gone, leaving only a massive pair of trunks rising from the base and intertwining in an upward spiral to represent what had once formed the perimeter of the original trunk. The canopy of deep green needles branched upward and outward in a series of arcs that sheltered and shaded the tombstones gathered under its spreading branches.

Secluded, singular, yet unremarkable. He couldn’t have chosen a better drop site himself. He glanced around the churchyard, saw nobody, no movement at all but the breeze buffeting the tall weeds and the festoons of clooties hanging above his head. And among them, the deep red strip of linen looped three times around a lower branch. The correct tree and his first contact with Arcturus.

He stooped beside the irregular-shaped base on the right side of the trunk, near the wall. He reached through the narrow cavity between the tangle of roots and felt around for the metallic object placed somewhere inside by his contact. Found handfuls of leaf litter and a store of last year’s acorns from a forgetful squirrel. He positioned himself closer, bent onto one elbow and reached more deeply into the hollow. Nothing in the lower section, but when he felt around the upper recesses, his knuckles struck the object, tucked neatly into a niche at the upper back of the hollow.

He retrieved the small metal capsule, a little larger and longer than a cigarette, and knelt low as he twisted off the cap and opened it. He removed the curled piece of paper with its coded lettering and flattened it before buttoning the message into his shirt pocket. He would decrypt and read it tonight.

He retrieved the red clootie from the tree, rolled it around the encrypted message he’d prepared in advance, then shoved the roll into the case. Now that the red clootie was no longer hanging from the yew, Agent Arcturus would know that a message was waiting in the dead drop.

These first messages were only a test of the system, a chance to assess the dead drop and the signals, before transmitting real information. Gideon had paraphrased and encrypted Churchill’s recent speech to Parliament:

A pithy and fitting phrase to launch this liaison with his counterpart at the SOE, Churchill’s redoubtable Agent Arcturus.